pierine

plural pierines

1. A butterfly of the family Pieridae.

   For Africa, Marshall has collected some fortysix observations of which almost half are concerned with Pierines.

   2016, Reginald Crundall Punnett, Mimicry in Butterflies

   2 more examples

   Rather than reviewing the physics and physiology of butterfly thermoregulation here, I will simply note that thermoregulatory advantage is not yet proven for the seasonal phenotypes of any pierine, though strongly suspected; increased survivorship […]

   2012, K. Wöhrmann, Population Biology and Evolution, page 18

   Any hope that the pierines would help to define “the level at which r-K phenomena should be sought has been dashed: apparently species groups (or subgenera, or splitters' genera) are r- or K-selected in the holarctic, whereas in Tatochila the same amount of differentiation is found among populations in a complex in which the process of speciation has not yet been completed.

   2012, Fritz Taylor, The Evolution of Insect Life Cycles, page 156

1. not comparablebiologyRelating to, or resembling, the butterflies of the family Pieridae.

   No pigment of similar constitution to the Pierine white, yellow, and red, was found by Mr. Hopkins in any other butterfly—not even in the allied Papilioninae.

   1898, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, volume 26, Linnean Society of London, page 597

   2 more examples

   The bearing of the geographical distribution of existing Pierine forms upon the preceding phylogenetic conclusions was then considered, and it was shown that the facts of distribution, taken in connection with what was known of the means of transit possible for insects, and especially of the migratory habits of certain Pierines, were in general accordance with the same conclusions.

   1893, The Transactions of the Entomological Society of London

   Perhaps some of the most interesting data on such properties of adaptive response, and constraints upon it, come from the recent studies of Shapiro on Andean pierine butterflies.

   2012, Allen M. Young, Population Biology of Tropical Insects, page 458